


Her Journey Bright and Pure: Outtakes

by visionshadows



Series: Her Journey Bright and Pure [31]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Childbirth, F/M, Families of Choice, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Het and Slash, Kid Fic, M/M, POV First Person, Sexuality, Sort of Not!Fic, Transgender, rambling thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:02:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/visionshadows/pseuds/visionshadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels like a cage, this body. It’s the only one I’ve ever known, but it’s wrong. So very wrong. There are mirrors that show who I am but that’s not right. They’re not right. It’s a reflection that’s off, showing this boy, not me. I have to take care of this cage, keep it strong, keep it healthy. I have to make it impenetrable, make it something that I’m aware of and able to manipulate and use to my own end. </p>
<p>But I don’t have to like it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Journey Bright and Pure: Outtakes

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely unbetaed and should mostly be considered not!fic. These are small snippets of thoughts from Sidney's POV and the majority of them are looking back post-transition. There will be contradictions between sections, no real train of thought to a point, and a lot of speculation on Sidney's part. These are strictly outtakes, thoughts that I've had and wanted to explore outside of the normal flow of the series.

_It feels like a cage, this body. It’s the only one I’ve ever known, but it’s wrong. So very wrong. There are mirrors that show who I am but that’s not right. They’re not right. It’s a reflection that’s off, showing this boy, not me. I have to take care of this cage, keep it strong, keep it healthy. I have to make it impenetrable, make it something that I’m aware of and able to manipulate and use to my own end._

_But I don’t have to like it._

_\---_

_Sometimes I think about what would have happened if I had fought for who I am when I was younger. If I had set my foot down and told my parents that I really wasn’t a boy. Not listened when my dad told me not to talk about it. If I had stopped building up my body for hockey. If I had found someone to listen. Even if I had to wait until I was 18 to take hormones, if I hadn’t prepared my body for hockey, would I look female now?_

_I mean, I look female now. At least, I look my starter version of female which is better than what I used to see in the mirror. I can’t get rid of my thighs and calves, my broad shoulders, thick wrists and large hands. I’ve spent too long making my body strong and hard to change that overnight into something soft and feminine._

_But at six months after I started hormone treatments, I look different. I do look softer. My edges have blurred and my angles are changing to curves. I lost weight when I stopped working on building mass. It took time to learn how to exercise to be healthy, to keep the muscle from turning into fat. I had to learn how to eat like a normal person, not a hockey player._

_And the hormones make me feel so insane half the time. At the NHL awards, I almost cried when I won the Hart. Granted I was retiring and no one knew when they voted me MVP that I was going to do that except Geno and a few other people in the audience._

_I didn’t cry._

_I took the statue, read my speech, and smiled out at my peers for the last time as Sidney Crosby, hockey player._

_I wonder if they knew. Looking at the pictures, I can see that I looked different. My face wasn’t the same. The suit I wore couldn’t hide the fact that I had already lost weight. I had on a binder that hid the breast development that happened a lot faster than we expected. I see the pictures, Geno sees the pictures, and we see me. The start of me._

_Everyone else sees what they want._

_We see me._

_\---_

_It was the engagement ring that really did it. Geno slipped a ring on my finger, a real ring, not a simple circle of metal that you would give a man, but one with diamonds and filigree. A woman’s ring. A ring that he shopped for, pretending either that he had a girlfriend somewhere or was looking for someone else. I didn’t care what he told people to be honest._

_Because when he slipped that ring on my finger and asked me to marry him, I knew that it wasn’t just lip service._

_It makes me feel awful to say that it took that ring after five years of us being together, him calling me beautiful, putting on my makeup, doing my nails, him treating me as a woman in every sense of the word no matter what I looked like for me to really, truly believe that he wanted *me*, that he didn’t expect me to snap out of it at some point and just decide it was easier to be a man._

_I never told him that I doubted him deep inside. That I expected him to come to his senses and decide that his life would be easier if he found himself a real woman. Someone who he didn’t have to risk his friends, family, and career over. Someone he wouldn’t spend his life defending. Hell, even if he found a man it would have been easier for him._

_I still feel like I’m selfish for keeping him, for saying yes and marrying him, for being the reason he lost his country, so many friends, and having to explain repeatedly to his family what being transgender meant and why I am the way I am._

_I do have another engagement ring. It’s completely acceptable and a simple circle of metal that I wore until I stopped pretending. It’s in a box along with the socially acceptable wedding ring that I also have._

_I wear my real engagement ring and wedding band now. I flash diamonds and filigree and when I look at them, I remember Geno’s fingers trembling and how he asked, haltingly in English if I would marry him._

_\---_

_I get to be a mom because my sister is awesome. We would have found a way to be parents if she hadn’t offered, but I doubt it would have been so intimate an experience for me if it hadn’t been her. Especially with Dima. It was a little different with Lana only because Taylor didn’t have the same time to devote to tracking the pregnancy that she did with Dima._

_When she was pregnant with Dima, the only other child was Nina who was already three and a half. She went to preschool and Taylor had the time to keep me in close contact with my baby growing inside of her. By the time she was pregnant with Lana, there was Nina, Dima, Mikey and Todd to keep up with between the two families._

_I was there when we first heard his heartbeat, when we saw his first ultrasound. I was at every appointment no matter what. When Dima was born in the warmth of Taylor’s living room, I was the one who caught him (and it had been catching - he was in a hurry. One minute he was in Taylor and then the next minute he was in my arms.) and held him immediately, wet and slick and screaming his displeasure. Geno cut the cord and was the first one to feed him, cradled in his large hands, the bottle and Dima seeming impossibly tiny._

_Lana wasn’t born at home since she was born after the twins who also weren’t born at home. She was born in a hospital with more medical intervention than any of us, especially Taylor, wanted. They were worried, needlessly so, that Taylor was having a baby post-Caesarean and didn’t want her to give birth at home._

_Taylor actually said afterwards that Lana would have been the easiest of all of them pregnancy and birthwise if it hadn’t been for the hospital. Geno still jokes that Taylor was cranky that she wasn’t allowed to eat the whole time which is why it was so awful. She made and ate fajitas when she was in labor with Dima. She also didn’t share the fajitas which Ryan constantly points out when it’s brought up._

_I held Lana about ten minutes after she was born, already cleaned off and bundled into a blanket. She was still crying a little, her face red and her lower lip sticking out in an angry pout. Taylor was already eating a turkey sandwich and asking when she was going to be able to go home. Dima was hooked on Geno’s hip even though he was six and constantly said he was too old to be carried like that, looking at his baby sister quietly. Dima looked like Geno when he was born, still does. Lana, except for that pouty lower lip, looked like a Crosby._

_As she grows up and gets older, I’m constantly amazed that she and I still have some of the same features, that somehow the changes I chose to make didn’t affect the family resemblance. I never realized that I modeled my face on Taylor’s until I saw it reflected in my daughter._

_\---_

_Geno cries when he thinks I’m not paying attention. I don’t always know why. I’m not good with emotions and crying. I … want to be with him. I can sometimes tell when he cries when he’s happy, like after we won the Stanley Cup. I don’t know what it means though when he presses a kiss to my temple and walks off to cry._

_Pam says I need to ask him. That I can't make assumptions about what Geno is feeling because the way I react to something is clouded by my experiences just like the way he reacts is clouded by his experiences._

_But what if I'm pretty sure I'm the reason he's crying?_

_\---_

_When I was ten, I stole a tube of red lipstick from my mother. She almost never wore it, the slim gold tube never left her dresser where it collected dust. But it was pretty and she was busy with Taylor. I remembered playing with her earrings and makeup when I was younger, when it was still cute to let her little boy hold up a necklace and say 'pretty Mommy' or to make a pretend pout and dab some color on my lips._

_I don't know if the red lipstick was the same one I vaguely remember when I was younger, but when I hid in my room and twisted the bottom to look at it I didn't care. The rich color and waxy feel on my lips made me feel pretty and the face that looked back at me didn't seem so weird._

_\---_

_Nail polish is important. The right color can make or break an outfit, can change your mood, can even influence what people think about you. I bought my first bottle on a whim while shopping for Taylor's birthday present. It was maroon like the Shattuck uniforms and I looked at it for a long time before I put it on for the first time._

_It was awful. I got it everywhere and I couldn't figure out how to get it off my nails or my skin once I had it on. I ended up scrubbing and picking it off. Ryan asked me what it was and I lied and said it was marker._

_But I bought blue when I started playing for Rimouski. And I had red and white when I played for Canada. I got better at using it once I decided to try putting it on my toes. I always said a girl did it for me the first time and it was true. I just didn't tell anyone the girl was me. My multitude of idiosyncrasies and habits let this one slide under the radar. Who cares if I have nail polish on my toes when I refuse to walk by the visitor locker room or insist on repairing my jock instead of getting a new one?_

_By the time Geno started to paint my nails for me, I had every color in the rainbow in multiple brands and finishes. I bought polish because it made me happy. I gave polish to Taylor as presents because it gave me an excuse to buy more._

_I bought polish from all over the world. If it was pretty, I bought it. Australia had a lot of small handmade polish makers that would ship to the US if you bought enough. Same for Europe and Asia. So I bought enough. If I didn't like it, I donated it to women’s shelters or nursing homes. Always anonymously of course._

_Colby never said anything when he roomed with me and neither did Duper after him. Duper would even watch me do it, sometimes frowning or commenting on the color if he didn't like it. But they never stopped me or told me that was a step too far on the weird scale._

_Neither of them were surprised when I started dating Geno. I think Colby thought I was gay the moment he met me, but never pushed. Duper got the lecture everyone else got and just didn't care._

_I never outright asked them what they thought when they found out I was female. They didn't find out from the article when I started transitioning but I never said the words to them like I did others. After awhile it was so tiring coming out again and again. Flower told Duper and Gonch told Colby. And neither Duper or Colby stopped talking to me. They did stop calling me Sid so that was a good enough sign for me that they were at least going to pretend they were fine._

_I do regret that Geno never told Ovi before the article. I could never call Ovi my friend, still can't after all the time we've spent together over the years. And I couldn't trust that he wouldn't react badly._

_It wasn't so much I thought he would have a problem with it. It was more that I was worried he would let something slip. The number of Russian hockey players who knew before the article numbered three - Sergei, Kovalchuk, and Semin._

_I never thought Sasha and Geno were close, but Geno called Sasha a pragmatist. He would understand when Geno needed someone to talk to and wouldn't breathe a word of it. Illyusha was like a brother which also surprised me until the first time he stayed in our home. Geno honestly wept when Ilya chose to return to Russia._

_And Sergei - Sergei was everything to Geno the first few years. That all-encompassing person who was friend, brother father, teammate. He was, and still is, Geno's confidant. No matter how much time passes, Sergei is always there. And he always will be._

_\---_

_Geno is queer. It took him awhile to get comfortable with a term for his sexuality. He never really liked the idea of labeling himself until Dima asked him. When we came out as a couple, everyone just assumed we both were gay. The term bisexual did get applied to him on more than one occasion since he had obviously been with women in the past._

_When I came out as female, the questions and assumptions started up again. Not for me. For him. They questioned what a gay man would be doing with someone who wanted to be female. How someone would be attracted to a person who was male but not. Whether he would stay with someone like me._

_They never had an ounce of right to ask Geno these questions or speculate about our relationship that way. And Geno never answered them. He laughed them off and just replied that he was a married man and had always loved me. He always considered me his girlfriend, not his boyfriend. My physical appearance wasn't what our relationship was based on._

_In fact my physical appearance was the one thing Geno didn't care about. He was attracted to me obviously. I was a decent looking man - even through my dislike of my appearance, I knew that. Geno was attracted to that man, to what he saw. But he didn't care . He knew that what he saw was not what I saw. And what he saw was different than what everyone else saw. So it didn't matter to him._

_Dima was five when he asked. Because of our family, because of what we did after hockey, Dima was exposed very early to what being gay meant, what being transgender meant, and to what family meant. He didn't understand what it meant in regards to sex because five was too early for that, but he knew it in terms of love. He knew that sometimes boys loved boys and girls loved girls and boys loved girls and sometimes boys and girls loved more than one other boy or girl and so on._

_He saw us - a boy and a girl. And he saw that we loved each other so that's just what he knew. He knew that I hadn't always been a girl and saw pictures of myself and Geno when I was still physically male, but right in front of his face was a boy and a girl. His Mama and Papa. The first time he heard someone call us a gay couple, he was confused._

_And that's when Geno explained to him that he was queer. He was somewhere on the sexuality spectrum but he didn't really care where. Queer was who he was and how he felt. He loved me when I looked like a boy and when I looked like a girl because he didn't care how I looked. He just knew that when he looked at me, he loved me._

_It's hard to explain to a child about gender variation and traditional gender roles and physical appearance not matching how you felt and the whole messy ball of life that is being a human being who doesn't fit into a neat little box regarding gender. We used a lot of pictures. I hope when we explain it to Lana, it won't be as confusing as it was for Dima._

_We figure that when Dima is eleven or twelve we can sit down and have a real sex talk. Explain what gay and straight means in terms of an adult relationship. Maybe explain a little better what Geno means by queer._

_Me - I've always been straight in my mind. I've never been attracted to women, only men. And I've always been a woman in my mind so even though my body didn't match, I saw myself as straight._

_Though queer has grown on me._

_\---_

_Geno likes getting fucked. The first person who asked him that was actually Max not long after he found out I was female. After he was traded to the Avs, the three of us and Flower got really drunk together after a game and Max demanded to know if Geno liked getting fucked and whether I fucked him._

_He did (does) and I didn't (then). That's not to say Geno's never been fucked while we've been together. I just didn't physically use my dick (when I still had one) to fuck him. Toys are fun and we learned really early on that we couldn't assume anything about sex. We had to talk and plan and try things out. Dildos are excellent._

_Now that I don't have a dick, Geno gets fucked a lot more often. Strap-ons are a lot easier to use if there isn't a dick in the way._

_\---_

_It took me a long time to like sex. The first few times I had sex, it was awful. I didn’t know what I was doing and what I wanted to do wasn’t happening the way it was supposed to. My dick was most assuredly not what I wanted to deal with and when you’re a guy, that’s what is out there. At least if I was having sex with a guy I could fake it - sort of. When you’re having sex with a girl, you better be using your dick to fuck her. I was pretty good at eating a girl out, jealous as hell, but decent at it so I could pretend I came from that._

_Either way, I hated it. So I stopped having it by the time I was 19. I had sex with four people; two guys and two girls. I had too much attention paid to my dick and cried after having a blowjob for the first time._

_Some trans women have no issues with sex, no hatred of their dick. Not me. I did the bare minimum when it came to keeping everything in working order. Having a wet dream felt like a fucking failure to me - my body reacting when I wasn’t able to control things - so I jerked off._

_After we won the Cup, I almost had sex with a friend of Jordy’s. She was cute, knew hockey, and said the filthiest things. I was drunk for what felt like two weeks straight, party after party. And I took her home._

_I came to my senses when I was kneeling between her spread thighs, my hand on my dick as I tried, unsuccessfully, to get myself hard. It was probably because I drank too much and not that I didn’t want to fuck anyone with my dick, but that wasn’t what I was thinking then. I got her off and she didn’t say anything about getting me off. I saw her a few times after that and she just winked at me and told Jordy I was a fucking great lay._

_Her name was Ari. I wonder if she thought I was gay at that time and just told people to keep them off my back. Either way, the stories Ari told kept anyone from bothering me about sex for a long time._

_Geno with his long arms and warm hugs were the best and worst thing for the longest time. It was just enough physical contact, a hug here and there, a warm arm slung over my shoulder, to keep me sane. It wasn’t enough to keep me from wanting more. That warm arm over my shoulder wasn’t enough when I was alone at night. The hugs were just a memory when I really wanted someone to hold me._

_I locked it away. I didn’t let myself think I could have that - not just Geno but anyone. Hockey was enough. It had to be enough because without it, I was just a scared girl who didn’t know how to tell anyone she was there._

_Kissing Geno was a revelation. I could have someone kiss me that knew who I was. He didn’t shy away from calling me beautiful. I think the only time he called me handsome was during an interview after we came out that we were dating._

_Sex … was still problematic. I didn’t know what to do to enjoy it and Geno didn’t know what to do to help me enjoy it. He did, at least, understand that no matter how hard I was I didn’t want my dick involved in the action._

_There was a lot of kissing and handjobs for Geno for the longest time. I would blow him and he would feel guilty because there wasn’t reciprocation. I didn’t want him to reciprocate. Geno has never given me a blowjob. Not once. He never even tried._

_I love being kissed. In fact that’s my favorite part of being with someone. Though, I did learn exactly how fun it is to be fucked and rimmed and fingered. Not to mention how awesome sex became when I got my breasts. By that point, the hormones were working and I didn’t really get hard that often._

_And after I had my bottom surgery - okay, sex wasn’t great again. I can’t lie and say that it was amazing because it wasn't. I had trouble getting used to my new body part. While it was finally the correct body part, it was still something entirely new. You don't get used to having a vagina right away after having a dick for 36 years._

_I had a problem touching myself for a few weeks after the surgery. The day I had the packing removed, I touched myself then. Both Geno and I were taught how to take care of my vagina and what to look for in regards to infection, how to perform the dilation necessary to keep everything open. Geno ended up being the one who did a lot of that the first few weeks._

_Our lives revolved around my vagina which was both mortifying and hilarious aat the same time. We went back to Pittsburgh because I couldn't face going back to Cole Harbor and being around Geno's parents and Taylor's family until things were a little more settled._

_But we learned. And those first few weeks where Geno spent a lot of time taking care of me led to him spending a lot of time well ... taking care of me. My body was rewired completely from my brain down. Not only did I have to learn things like how to go to the bathroom, but I had to learn what felt good. And there wasn't a lot of feeling good for awhile._

_So we had sex and it wasn't amazing or great. Geno didn't fit completely inside of me and we had to be careful because of that. But it was fun and relaxing and when I did have an orgasm - usually from his mouth and not from him fucking me - it seemed like a miracle._

_Now though, sex is great. It's fun and silly again. I can get off probably 75% of the time when he fucks me. He still doesn't fit inside of me and he never will. I won't gain any more depth without further surgery and that's just not important enough for either of us to go through that again._

_So it took 40 years, lots of female hormones, two major surgeries and one awesome husband for me to learn how amazing sex really can be. I almost wish I could go back and tell my 18 year old self that it will get better and sex won't always be this awful, frightening thing. Of course, I would also have to tell my 18 year old self that that most important day of our life will happen a year later when we first shake Geno's hand in Mario's living room and it will have nothing to do with the Stanley Cup._

_\---_

_My children don't know my parents. They've met them a few times when it's been a family function that we can't avoid, but they don't know that they're their grandparents. They are Mr. and Mrs. Crosby and that's all they will ever be._

_It's not *easy* by any stretch of the imagination to have that happen. Taylor and Ryan still have a relationship with them and their kids call them Grandmom and Grandpop. And our kids are well aware, okay maybe not Lana yet, that we are all a part of the same family. At some point I expect Dima to ask. He asks about everything else already so why not my parents._

_I refuse to allow them to make Dima and Lana feel like they are worth less then Nina, Mikey, or Todd because they're being raised by me and Geno. They have never shown any inkling of changing how they feel about me and my transition and true gender. I have no desire to change how I feel about them at this point. I am not a mistake and neither are my kids._

_Besides, they already have two sets of grandparents anyway. Between Geno's parents and Mario and Nathalie, my kids haven't wanted to for anything in the grandparent department. I learned a long time ago that blood isn’t everything._

**Author's Note:**

> These weren't going to be posted, but it's been ages since I've posted anything and I'm not close to finishing the last section of the story. Dine suggested I post them since so little has been explored using a tight POV like this. There may be some Geno outtakes at some point as well. 
> 
> Please keep in mind that these are supposed to be the inner thoughts of Sidney, not something polished.


End file.
